Happy Birthday
by Mennina
Summary: On the day of his fifth birthday, Samon and his older brother has to help out on the rice field during the harvest. So the day seems to have run out. Enki tries to save the evening at least and to make his little brother happy.


Special thanks goes to scheherazades-dominion. English is not my mother tongue. She helped me with sentences and grammar.

The basic idea comes from here; I have it still packaged something. ^ ^:

nanbaka-kink. ?thread=1265#cmt1265

I have published the story in German here.

fanfiktion. de /s/58b5dc4d0001602938aea510/1/Alles-gute-zum-Geburtstag-

* * *

 **Happy Birthday**

Sometimes Enki wondered if the whole damned universe had conspired against his younger brother Samon. The 15-year-old Chinese boy walked with a neutral expression along the path, but inwardly he cooked.

Today was Samon's Birthday. 5 years. A young age.

And of course today, not tomorrow or yesterday, they were to help with the harvest.

It was only to annoy Samon. If Samon was older, he might be able to understand, but with 5?

No, at 5 years a world collapsed for Samon. The only day out of the whole year, in which he was really noticed by the family, and then this!

Said person walked beside him with his shoulders slumped. The little boy stared at the floor. Samon was unhappy and, until recently, he had shed a lot of bitter tears.

Enki had tried to convince his parents.

He also ask for help from his great-grandmother Nana, but nothing had worked. Samon and Enki had to help. There were no excuses.

Nana could not help, because her back was causing her problems; well, she was already over 90 years old. That was something Enki could accept.

Father has twisted his knee during training and was not allowed to strain it. But if someone asked Enki, he would say his father was lying.

And Mother... no, don't ask. She has some kind of pain, like every other year.

And the last one was grandfather Hihi.

Grandfather Hihi has already helped two days in a row, and yesterday he had lower back pain. He could not help, even though Enki had heard him scream through half the house that he could work.

In the end, only Enki and Samon remained from their family.

Though Enki believed that at least his parents could help. They had not been so sick and injured this morning.

They both should stifle their dislike of Samon!

The rice field was waiting for them. Among the workers, Enki was able to recognize some well-known faces, but due to his long absence many of them were alien to him.

Samon was the youngest helper, he noticed.

The rice field was still under water. For Enki, the water was not too deep, but for Samon the muddy water was at his chest.

With the sickle or a knife, they cut stalk for stalk and loaded it on the shoulder. Elderly inhabitants of the village, who could not bend properly, tied this together.

The harvest of the rice was a project in which the whole village took part. The peasants did not have enough money to buy machines, so they did everything by hand.

But the rice fields were huge. And so one helped. First one field, then the next one. Eventually, all the fields were empty, the rice threshed, the rice farmers happy, and the rice stock for the next year was secured.

Only Samon was anything but happy.

Enki hears a "blubb" beside him and turns to see Samon had disappeared into the water. Immediately Enki searches for the small child. Samon had probably fallen into a hole.

His younger brother was still not able to swim and Enki did not want to go home alone today.

When he pulled Samon back to the surface of the water, he spit out a load of muddy water. Samon coughed and rubbed his eyes.

"Wait, I'll flush them out." Enki took Samon in his arms and carried him away from the field.

There were all sorts of pesticides in the water. Enki did not like that Samon swallowed the water, and how the mud got into his eyes.

Carefully, he flushed Samon's eyes with fresh drinking water. Samon blinked, his eyes were red.

"Come, Samon, help your old great-grandmother. You give me the rice, I'll tie it together." Enki almost jumped up in terror.

Nana had, without remark, joined in the harvest.

"Great grandmother? What about your back? " Enki questioned.

"My back? Forget it! Back pain is overestimated. My hands are still working!"

Enki was running a cloth through Samon's hair, and over his face, wiping the remaining dirt from it.

"Come on, go give Nana a hand. I'll continue to harvest." Samon nodded. He still looked at Nana with wide eyes.

Enki took up the work again, shaking his head.

His 96-year-old grandmother, with her broken back, dragged herself to the rice field to help with the harvest! And his oh so dear parents sat with broken fingernails and simulated knee pain at home.

Something was wrong in his family.

All day they worked on the rice field. It was only when the last car rolled for the day to the village square, and the sky turned color, that they were finished.

"Nana, would you like to come with us? My grandfather Xan has made a tub of herbal bath." One of the women asked. "Specially prepared for the older helpers."

"Oh, you go on, I'll go home with Enki and Samon." The old, frail woman stood up. Her back crackled and Nana cried out "Ow ow ow!"

Enki hurried to supported his great-grandmother.

"Maybe you'd better go with them, great-grandmother," Enki suggested gently. "I'll take care of Samon," he added softly.

"I thank the ancestors, the spirits, and every god, that you care for your brother. All right, go. And stop to see Mai-Li. I asked her to cook something for you at the end of the day. And there is ice."

Enki blinked. Then he smiled broadly and nodded.

Two maids took Nana along. Samon looked sad after her.

"Will she be able to walk again?" He asked.

"Of course. Her back only hurts her at the moment. But after a bath she will be better. And we both need one too! " Enki's clothes were completely sweaty and Samon was ... well, Samon had to take a bath after which he had almost drowned in the rice field.

But first came dinner.

Mai-Li was one of Nana's customers. Since Nana had been living in the village for so many years and provided everything and everyone with medicinal herb mixtures, everyone knew Nana.

Mai-Li was a gifted cook and owned a small shop.

The woman was in her early 70's and cooked and baked for all her life. Samon's red monkey tail wagged excitedly as he smelled the delicious dishes.

"What are we doing here?" He asked, confused.

We're picking up Nana's birthday present for you," Enki said. He took Samon on his shoulder so he could see something.

"Oh, there are our hardworking helpers. Hello Samon, happy birthday. "

Mai laughed a lot. She had a round face full of wrinkles and beamed at the brothers.

"Our great-grandmother had ordered here," said Enki, after whom he had greeted back.

"Yes, the birthday dinner for Samon, here. And there is also something from my husband and me. I did not know what sort of thing you liked. " Mai handed Samon something.

His eyes grew bigger and bigger.

"Is that a ...?" Samon looked at Enki, then at Mai-Li.

"An ice cream? Yes Samon, that's an ice cream," Enki replied.

Ice was very rare in the village. There were still no fixed power lines. That meant everything that was perishable had to be eaten or drunk quickly.

The same went for ice cream; which was really only eaten during winter in the village.

Enki and Samon's parents had a current generator, but they only ran it on special occasions.

"Give it a taste, you two."

And they did. They chose to eat outside. Enki had chosen a small hill, which lay away from the houses. The first stars had already risen above them.

Samon sucked his ice cream. It was ice blue and smelled like the bright blue ice bonbons (sweets? candies?) Enki had eaten from time to time.

Samon loved it.

Afterwards, they served rice with chicken, a sweet-sour sauce, various steamed vegetables, and a few filled pastries. For dessert there were baked bananas, pudding, and apples.

Then Enki looked into the sky. It was dark and starry. If all went well, then his parents had already gone to bed.

"Let's take a bath." He put Samon back on his shoulder and ran home.

As he had thought, his parents were already asleep. They had the bathroom for themselves.

Lamps were still burning in the hall. They had not blown out the candles, after all.

"Next year, we're celebrating your birthday right," he promised Samon as he grabbed the soap.

Samon nodded, his head hanging.

"Samon, little one," Enki went to his knees. "A lost battle is not a lost war. Real fighters can not be discouraged by such a thing. And you're a fighter, are you not?"

Samon quickly raised his head. The apple green eyes shone, just like Samon's emerald green chi.

"Of course I am a real fighter!" And with a bright, childish war cry, Samon jumped at Enki.

Enki laughed and deliberately grabbed a little too far to the left so his brother could pull up on his collar.

"Oh, you want a fight? Good, then you shall have one!" Cried Enki. Samon pushed a sound between a scream and a giggle, then climbed Enki's shoulder.

Enki reached for him, but gave his brother enough time to evade. Enki felt a tugging at his scalp, Samon had pulled on his hair and climbed all the way up.

Enki pretended to lose his balance and fell to his butt. He lowered his head and Samon fell off, landing in Enki's lap.

"Oh, I'll catch you," Enki said with a grin on his lips.

Samon screamed, jumped to the ground and dived behind Enki's back. Enki groped back. His brother squealed and used Enki's hair as a rope to get back on the shoulder.

Enki let it happen. He waited a moment and then "tried" to catch Samon again.

Samon clasped Enki's neck with both hands, escaping the fingers that had been gripping him.

"Oh come here, you little monkey!" This time Enki was faster. He grabbed Samon under the armpits and began to tickle him.

Bright laughter filled the room. Samon tried to escape, but Enki did not let him go. The older one had to be careful to make sure he did not press too hard.

Finally, he stopped tickling Samon. Enki let himself lay down on his back and he placed his heavily breathing and panting brother on his chest. Affectionately, he stroked Samon's back.

After a few minutes the little boy had calmed down.

"Samon?"

"Yes?"

"I've also brought you a present." Enki got up and pulled an object, that he had wrapped in red silk paper from his pocket.

Samon straightened.

"For me? Just for me?" whispered Samon.

"Of course, or does anyone else have birthday here?" Asked Enki with a smile. Samon shook his head and excitedly took the gift.

With pointed fingers, as if the paper itself were the gift and not the content, Samon slowly grabbed the gift.

A dark blue box lay in his lap. Samon swallowed with excitement and then he opened it.

On a blue velvet pillow lay a hair circlet of pure gold. Samon stared at him, then looked up.

Enki also had such a piece of jewelry.

The hair circlet was kept simple and reminded one of Sun Wukong in the story "The Journey to the West".

The Monkey King was the patron saint of their family, and every new member actually received a circlet at his birth. If they became too small, they were re-used as bracelets. Enki wore one around his ankle.

But he had not seen any jewels on Samon.

Samon had carefully raised the hoop and placed it on his head. Enki smiled contentedly when he saw this.

"Here is a mirror, Samon." Samon looked at himself.

At the moment he was far from being a child. As Nana had told him, his parents denied Samon the right to be a child.

Enki put the mirror away. Samon was quite still. He moved his head gently back and forth. Then, with a scream, he jumped to Enki.

"Thanks, Aniki! Thank you!

Enki caught him and pressed him to himself.

"Let's take our bath now. You must certainly be tired."

"No," came Samon, closely followed by a loud yawn.

Enki snorted amusedly and went to take off their clothes, to get them their well-deserved bath.

As he reached for the soap, Enki was realized what Samon had said for the first time:

 _Aniki_.

 _Big Brother._


End file.
